Christmas comes more than just once a year for modern-day crooner and former American Idol star Clay Aiken. The 34-year-old North Carolina native says he starts prepping for holiday tours as early as September and had entered studios to record covers of classic Christmas tunes by May for his previous winter releases.

He brings his latest seasonal Joyful Noise tour to City National Grove of Anaheim on Dec. 21. Right now for Aiken, it's “all Christmas, all the time.”

“This is really my favorite show,” he says of the holiday-themed tour, which includes his takes on various familiar cuts as well as a few originals from his 2004 release Merry Christmas with Love and 2006 EP All Is Well. He's remade everything from “O Holy Night” and “Winter Wonderland” to “Mary, Did You Know?” and “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” Each year, he says, he switches up which one is his favorite.

“Sometimes it changes throughout the show itself,” he adds. “The first song I ever recorded was ‘The First Noel' on the Idol Christmas album, so that was my favorite then, and if you would have asked me last year I would have said ‘O Come, O Come, Emmanuel' because I loved the arrangement we did on it. Now this year we have a big brass section blowing out on ‘First Noel,' so that's become my favorite again to sing every single night.

“I think these Christmas songs fit well in my voice and they work well for me, so I really kind of like them all.”

Life After Idol

It's been almost a decade since the masses were first introduced to Aiken's vocals on the second season of the Fox singing competition American Idol. Though Aiken was a close runner-up to winner Ruben Studdard, he nonetheless went on to achieve success after the cameras stopped rolling.

He signed to RCA Records in 2003 and that same year released his multiplatinum debut, Measure of a Man. More albums followed, including a disc of refashioned favorites, A Thousand Different Ways (2006), featuring renditions of tracks made popular by Dolly Parton, Richard Marx, Celine Dion and Bryan Adams.

Two years later, Aiken put out a collection of original material with contributions from several collaborators, among them OneRepublic frontman Ryan Tedder and mega-producer and songwriter David Foster. That proved to be Aiken's last album with RCA. He later signed with Decca Records and in 2010 issued an assortment of standards, Tried and True, followed by Steadfast last March. Of all the songs he's covered, however, Aiken says the Righteous Brothers' “Unchained Melody” is by far his favorite.

“I love it for multiple reasons, but it was the first song that I sang, and my mom would play it back when I was in middle school because she loved it and convinced me to learn it,” he says.

“It's always been a favorite and I've been signing it for years, but I never had my own version of it. ... I'd pick that as my favorite, but I also loved Johnny Mathis' songs growing up. I feel like I was born a little too late sometimes. The songs from the '50s, '60s and '70s, that's the kind of style that I love the most. Artists like Perry Como ... and I know this doesn't make me the coolest kid on the block to say that Perry Como was someone I loved, but I loved his stuff, and covering ‘It's Impossible,' I was thrilled to have the chance to do that.”

It was a reality TV show that introduced Aiken to his rabid legion of fans, instantly dubbed “Claymates,” but he's not particularly fond of the format now, as it's been copied numerous times by other shows such as The X Factor, The Voice and America's Got Talent. He admits that he stopped watching Idol after Carrie Underwood's winning season in 2005.

“The show has gotten a lot more slick and the contestants got a lot more polished, but I think the biggest problem is that the judges are the stars now,” he says, carefully choosing his words.

“When I was on the show, Ruben and myself, we literally came right off the bus and into Hollywood, and we were naïve and real and it was all very authentic and organic. Simon (Cowell), of course, was a star, but people tuned in, I think, to see Ruben and myself, Kimberley Locke and Kim Caldwell. Now they tune into see whether or not the judges are going to fight with each other.”

Aiken says he'd be happy to serve as a mentor to an aspiring singer, but he doesn't feel like he would have much to offer as a coach to someone trying to break into show business in that particular arena now. He believes these competitions still make for good television, yet he doesn't foresee them creating more massive success stories.

“I don't think we're going to necessarily see another Kelly Clarkson or a Carrie Underwood because I think there are too many of (these shows),” he contends. “The people that go on the shows now, they should have more realistic expectations, because it doesn't mean they're going to become instant radio stars. But some of them might be able to parlay a television success if they work hard and have the right people around them.”

Over the years, Aiken has done more than just music. In 2004 he wrote Learning to Sing: Hearing the Music in Your Life with Allison Glock, which became a New York Times best-seller and helped land him guest spots, mostly as himself, on TV shows like Scrubs, Drop Dead Diva and 30 Rock. One of his greatest moments, he says, came when in 2008 he landed the role of Sir Robin on Broadway in Monty Python's Spamalot.

“I loved doing the Broadway thing,” he says. “I love the consistency of it and the routine and camaraderie of working with the same people every day and knowing what time I was going to be there and all of the teamwork that went into that.”

Second-Time Runner-Up

Earlier this year, Aiken competed on the fifth season of Donald Trump's The Celebrity Apprentice and raised more than $350,000 for his charity of choice, the National Inclusion Project, during his second stint on reality TV. Aiken played alongside former late-night host Arsenio Hall, pop star Aubrey O'Day, comedian Lisa Lampanelli, singer Debbie Gibson and others. In the end, Aiken was fired by Trump and yet again came in second place, this time losing to Hall, who raised $500,000-plus for his charity, the Magic Johnson Foundation.

“I took away some good friends from that show and the resolution that I am never going to be in a competition with a black man again,” he says with a hearty laugh, referring to losing to friends Hall and Studdard.

His days doing TV competitions are over, he insists, at least for now. He only did Idol and Celebrity Apprentice because he thought he might have a shot at winning, but he'd turn down Dancing with the Stars in a heartbeat because he'd “absolutely have no chance, even for a second, on that show.”

He was excited, however, to do Celebrity Apprentice so he could meet Lampanelli, whom he had heard made fun of him relentlessly in her stand-up act for years, mostly taking jabs at Aiken's sexuality. (A little more than four years ago, after much speculation, he revealed in People magazine that he is gay.)

“I walked up to her and said, ‘I know you've been talking (trash) on me for the past 10 years.' We easily became friends and I just went and saw her in New York a few weeks ago – you should hear her act now!

“She's one of my favorite people from the show, without question. I knew what she had said about me and I had seen her on a (celebrity) roast or two, but I didn't follow her much. But now I do. Her comedy is funny, but she also has a good heart, which makes me like it even more. People see her and think she's just a bitch, but the truth is she's a very sweet lady. She just plays this character on stage, which I think is interesting.”

Following his holiday tour, Aiken doesn't have much planned, which typically works out better for him, he says. As he's navigated his way through show business, he has learned that when he tries to push it and plan, things don't quite work out: “The stuff that we've done that's had success is always something that we didn't seek out. The main plan now is to stay open to lots of possibilities.

“You know, ‘Jesus take the wheel,' as the great philosopher Carrie Underwood once said.”

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